Answer: yesterday, today, and tomorrow. One of the primary indicators of food safety performance and compliance to customer quality expectations is the condition of your facility. If you don’t have capital improvement projects built into your annual budget, you may already be behind. Disrepair of facility and equipment can lead to foreign material issues, microbial harborage and contamination, and more down time.
The graph above depicts a fictitious company (company “X”) that finally realizes it needs “bite the bullet” to invest in major facility and equipment repairs, yet it recoups costs savings by being more efficient and reducing down time due to better operational quality performance.
The chart below depicts a fictitious company (company “Z”) that opts not to invest, for whatever reason, be it denial, hubris, greed, too busy, etc.
As can be seen, company “Z” had a better profit than company “X” in 2018, but failure to reduce risk led to a recall and outbreak. The cost of which wasn’t fully realized until years later after loss of business, insurance claims, and lawsuits were realized.
Invest now, while you still can.
